AMD Kaveri may slip into 2014, Kabini refresh codenamed ‘Beema’

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Rumors point to a potential delay for AMD’s upcoming Kaveri processor. According to the ever popular “industry sources,” Kaveri will only sample in a handful of parts (two A10s and an A8 SKU) before the end of the year, with the majority of the ramp being pushed backwards into 2014. While the accuracy of the rumor mill is always questionable, in this case, the rumors make sense.

According to our sources, Kaveri didn’t tape out until after November 2012 — AMD kept the part in-house a little longer to try and squeeze more performance out of the core. While the company has been adamant about a 2013 launch, shipping product just 10 to 12 months after the design was completed would be extremely quick. True, GlobalFoundries has more experience with the core at this point, but Kaveri still integrates non-trivial features like a new GCN-based graphics solution and HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) compatibility. The idea that the core could slip a bit for wider availability is logical.

AMD’s roadmap still shows Kaveri in Q4.

The other reason we suspect a potential slip is that the desktop market is dropping like a rock. Gartner’s latest data points to low-end desktop sales as particularly impacted, but the mobile market is “enjoying” its worst downturn in years as well as consumers shift to tablets that aren’t powered by x86 chips. That means AMD is under pressure to ramp tablet chips and win designs in that space above all else, which could mean Kaveri is bumped back a bit to focus on that goal.

The final piece of the puzzle is the ramp for Xbox One and PS4 parts. While those chips should be well into production at this stage, it’s a production issue that has to be managed with GlobalFoundries. Again, with limited foundry space and a supposed new GPU ramping up for the holidays (Volcanic Islands), AMD may be staggering its launches to hit the more important markets first.

There’s also a Kabini refresh on the way for 2014, codenamed Beema, but this is expected to be a “Brazos 2.0” style launch with some clock speed improvements and power gating enhancements rather than a new core. That means Kaveri will continue to be the HSA-capable part (Kabini isn’t HSA-capable), but AMD may change that in 2015, when it launches the next iteration of its smaller core.

If pushing back Kaveri a bit gives AMD more flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing dynamics in the PC market, it’s going to be a net positive. Consumer buying patterns are shifting rapidly at this point and while the conventional PC business remains vital to AMD’s income, it needs to establish itself as a player in these new spaces.

Tagged In

I don’t think that it will slip. Even recently AMD has maintained that it will fall in 2013. There would have to be production problems, which would be unlikely, for kaveri to slip to 2014. This is because these parts are currently in production and they are probably not miscalculating. I sure hope this is not true and I don’t think it is.

Guest

It’s hard to say… just one month ago was Computex, and they still affirmed that it would be out this year.

On the other hand like Mr. Hruska said, they have higher priorities right now. Assuming everything plays out the way they want, the PS4/X1 will be crucial piece in making their graphics and APU products more desirable in the longer term. If it also helps push HSA along as a standard, it’ll be a big victory for AMD since as far as I know, they’re the furthest along in developing this.

kirilmatt

But its already in production. Since its been in production for awhile and they’ve never changed their position then I think its safe to say they aren’t lying to us. If it weren’t in production then this would be believable. They have never once said it might be delayed throughout the process. There have been many articles in the past saying AMDs “big” cores are either completely canceled or delayed. They have been false. AMDs execution has also been very good of late. In fact there was an article today saying kabini was released a full quarter ahead of expectations. I don’t think its feasible to believe that AMD will push this back.

Jml

Wrong it has not and AMD already has one foot in the grave just more one mistake like bulldozer and AMD IS FINISHED!!!!

kirilmatt

It wouldn’t be an AMD article without you JML

Jml

Thanks a bunch. AMD will miss their mark just like they always do.

raddude9

Yea, but they wont miss their mark nearly as much as MIPS do. And Kiril is right, their execution has been much improved lately.

Jml

Wrong Kaveri is delayed because of PS4 and Xbox 180 so AMD missed their mark BIG TIME!!!!!

raddude9

Any proof that it is delayed?… apart from a dubious rumor that is.

Jml

The Rumor is true just like it was for Trinity SO SUCK IT AMD!!!!!!

raddude9

Any proof the rumor is true? No?

There’s a world of difference between what You think is true what actually is true. When exactly did Reality send you the divorce papers?

Jml

Trinity was delayed like no tomorrow it was set to be released early 2012 but we got in Q312 which was too late for AMD. No but Reality did send you divorce papers.

raddude9

Using my own joke against me, wow, at least have the originality to come up with your own. Sad.

Jml

Oh that’s nothing I’m afraid but Trinity and Llano not only sucked EGGS but both of them got delayed like no tomorrow.

raddude9

Sure, AMDs products may have been delayed back in the day, but recently, Richland/Temash/Kabini have come out bang on time.

And Trinity didn’t suck, it was great value for money and has a great GPU:.

Not this irreverent article again. Yeah Trinity does suck down power like no tomorrow. Performance per watt is key for me. SO any AMD isn’t going to cut for me because all of them have terrible Performance per watt.

raddude9

There are some very efficient 19 Trinity and Richland chips you know, they are quite power efficient, you should check them out.

I don’t care about your needs, what important to me is what’s the best deal for most people, and that’s usually AMD.

Jml

I know that its likewise for me as well I don’t care much about what you want. That aside AMD SUCKS in performance per watt an Haswell Rocks at performance per watt.

Dozerman

You know you are sooo right. AMD is so close to going under. The millions of chips they have sold are nothing but a lie! And they’re place in the faster supercomputer on earth is second fiddle two the acceleraters

Jml

No but its not enough to keep AMD and their board of chimps afloat. AMD is as good as dead being run by a board of IDIOTS!!!!!

raddude9

The board doesn’t matter, the CEO does and RR is the best CEO AMD have had in a very long time.

Jml

I am not so sure about that. A marketing person as the CEO is bound of utter disaster. He’s no better than board of chimps that hired him.

raddude9

Marketing?? Rory Read was COO of Lenovo and he had a really good track record in that position.

Jml

Yeah Rory Read was a marketing guy down to the core. Over-hyping AMD’s gains and vastly underestimating its competition.

raddude9

RR was never in marketing, what are you talking about? He was COO in Lenovo, that’s not marketing. And when has he over-hyped anything?

Jml

Oh MY you don’t get it do you? He hyped EVERY AMD product that has been release since he took office. For example Bulldozer he has it would be 50% faster than Phenom II when it was NOT EVEN CLOSE to that.

raddude9

You need to look at your timelines, RR only joined AMD a couple of weeks before Bulldozer was released, all the hyping was done before that, so the damage was already done.

Jml

Really? AMD the time was mad that sysmark relied on CPU too much and that is because Bulldozer just sucked THAT MUCH!!!!!

From the looks of those articles it look like AMD had good reason to withdraw support for those flawed artificial benchmarks. Didn’t the sysmark benchmark use an intel compiler which was designed to turn off optimizations on AMD chips.

Jml

At one point it did but AMD acts like a crybaby and it still does when things don’t go its way. Intel has the money to optimize for their so chips so why not.

raddude9

If a benchmarking company ignores the concerns of one of their main users then it’s likely they have been incentivized to do that by their other user.
Sure, intel can optimize for their chips, but they have been caught many times De-optimizing AMD chips, and it’s only fair that AMD should cry foul when they are found out.
Anyway, regardless of where the truth may lie, the upshot is that Sysmark has fallen into disrepute and nobody takes it seriously any more.

Jml

Ok I’ll give you that. Intel is not innocent NOT BY A LONG SHOT!!!! But they make superior products to AMD barrel of shit that they produce called SHITDRIVER!!!!

raddude9

So you mean Piledriver by any chance, it’s often hard to get past your foul language.

The Piledrive line have their issues, but chips like the FX-6350 and FX-8350 give great performance per $, an important metric for many desktop users:

I mean all of the lines SUCKDOZER, CRAPDRIVER, and last but not least SHITROLLER!!!!!!!! Most people are going Intel because that what everyone me included recommends. Intel is far superior to AMD in performance and power consumption and doesn’t cost that much more.

raddude9

I’m not sure what product lines you’re talking about now, perhaps you should include a reference to the real names.

Most people “go intel” because of it’s massive advertising budget. Any reason you put forward is paltry in comparison to that one.

So you admit intel costs more. Then the question becomes, when is it worth paying extra for intel chips. Unfortunately for them it’s almost never worth paying more.

Jml

They include bulldozer, piledriver, and steamroller AND THEY ALL SUCK ASS!!!! That is true but Intel is also superior AMD will NEVER catch up. Yeah so what and yes it is worth paying extra if it uses much less power.

raddude9

How would you know how the Steamroller cores perform, they not due out for months!

How much extra is it worth paying to use less power?

How do you work out when it is worth it?

Jml

For a smaller system your going to pay more no matter who its from. When its something I want.

raddude9

It’s your prerogative to want a small system. Most people generally prioritize cost over size though.

Jml

That is very true. I like small systems and that is what I want to buy so AMD doesn’t have anything for me to buy so I go Intel.

raddude9

There are a number of small AMD systems (like the sapphire Edge VS8) and a number are planned, like the Kabini version of the Gigabyte Brix:

Yeah That’s a very good way of putting it AMD fanboi. Only an AMD fanboi would have those mixed up priorities that are opposite to mine.

raddude9

Only a die-hard intel fanboi wouldn’t put price as the top priority. Everybody else would.

Jml

Maybe but as you might know I am NOT a fanboi I don’t like Intel very much either. I only don’t like AMD because THEY SUCK ASS!!!!

raddude9

You sound like an intel fanboi though!.

When you say “AMD sucks a$$” do you mean the company does, or their products do, and if so which products? And in what way do they suck?

Jml

The company does and their products do. Let me explain why AMD products suck. Unfortunately the AMD products that don’t suck like AMD mobile Richland and Jaguar are mediocre at best because their IPC and power consumption while better than Intel’s AMD has down right terrible performance per watt. The way AMD does things AMD is much too slow to respond to Intel. It also means that every other product that AMD has SUCKS OUT LOUD!!!!!

raddude9

So, if the Richland and Jaguar products don’t suck, which products do suck?

You keep saying that AMD has terrible performance per watt! but have you got any evidence for this on the mobile side of things?

Compare the Sapphire Edge VS8 against the intel NUC, the Sapphire has slightly lower CPU pperformance but it tends to use less power as well.

And why should AMD “respond” to intel, wouldn’t a better approach be to create new and innovative products on their own and not try to replicate another companies products after-the-fact.

Jml

Everything else AMD makes SUCKS. Its performance isn’t good enough that’s what. Its CPU has very low IPC and their IGP’s need to be a lot more powerful. What kind of product do you think AMD should be making?

raddude9

Apart from Richland and Jaguar products, the only other consumer products they have are the Piledriver line, and although these products use a lot of power, they doe give a lot of cores for the money, which is great for certain applications.

AMD should continue to fill in the gaps in intel’s product lines with decent low-cost options. Apart from that, I’d like to see a consumer PS4 type chip for PC’s, same GPU, but with more powerful CPU cores, that would be cool.

Jml

AHAHAHAHAH….Piledriver IS A PIECE OF DOG SHIT!!!!! It uses way too much power to give inferior performance to Intel CPU’s and uses two to four times the power of any Intel CPU. AMD has ZERO powerful cores their cores all suck ass as far as IPC goes.

raddude9

Sure, Piledriver does not have a particularly high IPC, but in many benchmarks it still beats similarly priced intel chips, sometimes by a good margin.
To many users this fact will mitigate it’s higher power consumption.

Jml

Uh no it doesn’t beat similarly priced Intel chips in fact it barely ties them and gets beaten very often by Intel’s chips. AMD has low IPC and terrible power consumption.

” As a result, the FX-8350 will give you more performance for your dollar than the Core i5-3570K, and it at least rivals our value favorite from Intel, the Core i5-3470.”

IPC is fine but the vast majority of performance software is multi-threaded these days, and power consumption simply does not matter much with desktop CPUs

Jml

Wow you are only taking power usage out of the equation to make AMD look good when IT DOESN’T!!! AMD SUCKS OUT LOUD for power usage!!!! IPC is everything you IDIOT!!!! Without great IPC like Intel has you can’t have good mutil-thread performance and its still the IPC area. Multi-threaded APPS are wishful thinking right now. Most apps Only use one or two cores. The FX-8350 SUCKS OUT LOUD And it sucks down two to three times the power that Intel uses. Don’t reference that useless chart ever it is pointless!!!!!! Try something else that isn’t so AMD-biased!!!!

raddude9

IPC was important… in the past, now even games are going multi-threaded and the little niche uses for high IPC are getting even smaller.

The FX-8350 is a desktop chip, how is power consumption important, it’s not running off a battery!

Jml

Idiot you are really Dumb aren’t you. Power consumption matters because I don’t want to pay $10 to $20 extra a month to run my PC just because I bought and AMD PC that is inferior to an Intel PC I have now. IPC is important in emulation and in games like starcraft 2 and don’t say its not modern because it is. You make every excuse to make AMD look good even thought THEY FLAT OUT SUCK ASS!!!!!! Wrong without High IPC good multi-thread performance just can’t happen. Right now 4 Intel cores can go up against 8 AMD cores and still come out on top. SO YOU LOSE I WIN!!!!! AMD SUCKS INTEL ROCKS!!!!!

raddude9

$20 a month!! Either you live in a place with the worlds most expensive electricity or your math is well off. I reckon your math is well off.

What about:
“without High IPC good multi-thread performance just can’t happen”
That statement goes against regular logic, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, please explain.

Jml

Actually yes because I keep my PC on 24/7 so AMD is way too expensive for me ONLY INTEL can provide me with what I need for low power. Oh my IPC governs single core performance and without good single core performance you can’t have good multi core performance. It doesn’t always work like this but the way it would work in theory is say CPU A has an IPC of 5 for each core and CPU B has an IPC of 3 for each core. in a four core version CPU A would have an IPC 20 (5×4) and CPU B in four Cores has an IPC of 12 (3×4) I think you get where I am going with this. Also you need to remember AMD also has inferior memory bandwidth so much so that its actually limiting AMD Piledriver from performing at its best.

Jml

Yeah That’s a very good way of putting it AMD fanboi. Only an AMD fanboi would have those mixed up priorities that are opposite to mine.

tweak222

You’re not taking into account the piss poor economy. Performance per watt might be a thing if you have money to blow but most people don’t. Now-a-days its about performance per dollar and AMD wins that battle every time.

raddude9

Sure, AMDs products may have been delayed back in the day, but recently, Richland/Temash/Kabini have come out bang on time.

And Trinity didn’t suck, it was great value for money and has a great GPU:.

AMD is a small company compared ti Intel or NV and the fact that everybody is bashing then doesn’t help much with their economical situation.
It would be nice to see some samples of Kaveri out in Q4 2013 even if the chips won’t be available, AMD should give us at least that. But I’m more interested in the Kaveri mobile chips. I would really like to buy a kaveri notebook with CF possibility.

kirilmatt

Not NV. They are much bigger then NV because they have x86.

Guest

Right.

But keep in mind that there is a big boom in mobile right now, and ARM is the mobile ISA of choice. In a way, AMD is relying on Intel’s vast power to make x86 relevant in the mobile space so that AMD themselves can access that market. This is where nVidia can get a leg-up, because they already licensed ARM’s instruction set, and are working on their own custom core. If ARM wins the mobile war, nVidia too will get a boost from this.

AMD on the other hand has said they intend to stick with x86 mostly. They’re using ARM to make some low power servers, but I don’t think they’re working on anything else so far. They had to lay off so many of their workers and even cut the R&D budget. They can’t afford spread their work too thin I’d think.

nVidia screwed up their Tegra chips, and now they’re facing an uphill battle on adoption, but they’ll be just fine. AMD on the other hand has a very promising strategy but if it doesn’t work out the way it intends to, AMD could go down completely…

kirilmatt

I kind of agree with you and kind of don’t. AMD actually has a huge advantage over ARM manufacturers and over nvidia. X86 is way more versatile then ARM. It can run windows, being a main attraction, but it can be either low or high power. ARM is struggling to scale up just like x86 is having a tougher time scaling down. The PC isn’t dead and AMD has a lot of market share to potentially gain, unlike Intel. They also only have one competitor on this front. Not only that, but they have the option to license ARM should they need to. They have a lot of options. Not only that but compared to most other ARM manufacturers and compared to Intel they have a very good GPU division. True nvidia does as well, but they can’t integrate like AMDs APUs. They have to wait until ARM comes out with a better design, while AMD can design their own chips. HSA is a potential game changer for AMD. Kaveri can help this to be adopted for when they release their ULV HSA chips. They are far from finished and their IP is very strong as well as their roadmap. The console wins show just how well AMD can integrate and how competitive they are. Nobody else could have offered the same experience as them on the consoles.

Guest

You’re right. HSA is a key piece to making AMD’s future. They also have a great graphics division… only except it suffers from the same problems that Intel is having with their processors. It’s hard to scale down that power. When ATi was acquired, they had their own mobile graphics division… Adreno. Does it ring a bell? :)

Unfortunately the CEO of AMD at the time immediately sold it off for peanuts to Qualcomm because he decided he wanted to compete with Intel on high-end processing power and didn’t think about the potential of mobile. I’m positive they’re regretting that decision very badly. Mobile graphics uses vastly different IP, and now that they lost that IP, they’re going to have to circumvent it with their own unique solution.

This is also why I figure they decided to not go for the smartphone market, despite it being fast growing and hot. Scaling it down to just a few watts would take too much work, and maybe even new projects starting from scratch. They can probably create competitive solutions within the tablet TDP range without breaking their near-empty bank, so that’s what they’ll stick with. Besides, I don’t think they want to compete with Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, Broadcom, and soon Imagination Tech. after acquiring MIPS. It’s very crowded, and they’re all loaded!

kirilmatt

The adreno sale was pretty stupid, I have to admit! I think AMD is on the way up financially. They are projecting profitability in Q3 and the consoles will bring in huge revenues considering they are supplying the chips, not licensing them. I think if AMD brought temash to android it would be a success. Personally I like windows but there isn’t enough apps. Temash’s GPU would destroy anything ARM currently has to offer while offering good CPU performance. As for GPU scaling down, I think they can, nvidia plans to do the same thing by 2015 on their tegra line. It may not be easy, but certainly doable.

Guest

x86 is Intel’s property, and while I don’t know the reason for sure, it’s been speculated that Intel refused to license out x86 to nVidia because they didn’t want more competition. Now that nVidia jumped on ARM which is controlling the mobile world, I bet they’d be more generous in letting others use it to help build it’s presence. It’s too late for that now, because nVidia invested too much into it to back out now.

AMD is also counting on Windows 8 tablets to boom. Legacy support is a big incentive for customers, and x86 offers that. However, if ARM keeps this momentum up, more and more will shift away, and x86’s legacy advantage will seem less relevant.

Ah, I’m going off topic now… uh, anyways — I don’t think the margins made on the console hardware is the important part. They had to undercut nVidia and others to win the next console generation. nVidia said as much, and I believe them. The important part is that many talented developers are working and familiarizing themselves with AMD hardware and importantly — HSA. Also, with Sony’s push with self publishing for indie developers, experience with their hardware and the ease of use/potential with HSA can be realized. If everything pans out, APUs will get many optimized games and developers will start to use the GPU for CPU processing, neutralizing Intel’s performance advantage, or at least lessening it. This will make their APUs hot stuff.

kirilmatt

They didnt have to undercut almost anyone. No other company could offer the same SOC package as AMD. Interviews showed that Sony and MSFT wanted a high end GPU, leaving AMD and Nvidia and they wanted a single chip. They decided they wanted x86 because of devs being familiar with it and its relationship with PCs. This left one company. They should be making ~$80 per chip on the Xbox and PS because they are actually selling the chips to Sony and MSFT, not simply licensing the technology like in the past. This is because x86 cannot be licensed by AMD. As for x86 becoming useless I disagree. People still use PCs. The problem is that they aren’t upgrading. A core 2 from years ago is good enough for your average user. So why upgrade? ARM cannot run full windows but x86 can run android. X86 has a distinct advantage because of this. People and businesses will still use high performance PCs to do work. There will always be that market. If they can scale down, which they are, x86 could become a lot more useful then ARM

Guest

x86 can be scaled down, but it’s no easy feat, and while AMD has the talent needed to make it happen, they don’t have the money. This makes Intel the sole x86 player in the smartphone market in a sea of ARM.

I think x86 will be just fine, but at the same time I do feel like you’re underestimating ARM. Windows RT, which everyone kindly refers to as Fail RT is actually more or less a full Windows OS. It’s only limiting factor is how weak ARM chips are in comparison. Windows RT has the desktop, it has office etc. If important legacy programs are rewritten for Windows RT because ARM becomes so huge and the chips powerful enough, the x86 advantage goes away. Already Qualcomm’s greatest, the Snapdragon 800 can drive 4k displays and video and it’s weaker chips are more than good enough for web browsing and all kinds of content consumption. These mindless consumers are a major portion of the market. ARM is already encroaching upon the light productivity portion of the market. They may never touch the enthusiasts and heavy productivity users, but the truth is that they don’t make up too significant a portion of the overall market.

Anyways what I meant to say is that while people say Windows RT is gimped, it’s not necessarily the OS so much as it is waiting on the chips and ARMs software ecosystem maturity to unleash it’s full potential.

Thank you for clarifying about AMD. I admit I was kind of half speculating on some light article reading over the past few months.

kirilmatt

The thing with windows RT is that Intel atom(and temash) make in useless. It has very few apps and doesn’t get better battery life or performance. I wish windows got more apps for metro. I have 2 windows 8 PCs, an old windows 7 tablet with a single core atom and a desktop with an AMD CPU and Nvidia GPU. I can’t help but wonder if Windows RT has any future with the way Intel and AMD are competing with their tablet chips.

Saby

Not so sure that ARM can’t compete. ARM chips have improved their performance (albeit from a very low base) about 2-2.5x per year. People talk about ARM having difficulties scaling up, but Snapdragon 800 is 2.5x the power of the Snapdragon S4 Pro, in a year, while remaining with the same process tech (28nm). How much are Intel chips progressing per year, 10%, 15%?
Do you see where that leads? Tegra 3 was probably shit, but Snapdragon 800 won’t be. And you can bet that next year’s 64bit chips on 20nm are surely not going to be slowish…

Look at where the puck is going not where it is or was (Tegra 3) in the past…

ronch

That’s a very interesting scenario (Intel opening up x86 for license again as the industry slowly shifts away from x86 and its legacy). It could actually happen. ARM’s challenge is to build enough momentum behind its ISA (not just in mobile devices which are pretty much for media consumption only and not much else) and slowly push x86 to irrelevance. Today’s ARM cores are very weak compared to the fastest x86 designs. If ARM wants to make a serious entry into ‘serious’ computing devices (e.g. servers, workstations, high end home PCs, etc.) they truly need to come up with cores that can catch up to x86 in terms of IPC, not just giving consumers more cores (we all know we can’t just simply use more and more cores). And even if they do come up with the fastest, most power-efficient cores they’d still need to convince IT managers, most of which are currently firmly dependent on x86 hardware and software infrastructures, to make the switch to ARM. It’s not gonna be easy pulling these people into the ARM camp. Nobody wants to ditch their H/W and S/W infrastructure just so they could jump onto a new ISA just because. Businesses will evaluate if the power and performance advantages are enough to justify the move to a new ISA by ditching their current infrastructures.

Guest

Yeah but as a lot more services move to larger and larger data centers/servers, the cost of powering and cooling them becomes a very nice incentive to poke your way in. Not every service provided over the internet is giant like Google etc. where you need mega farms that cost tens of millions a year in maintenance cost. For the modest sized (and plenty of them) low powered ARM chips are an attractive option. The name of the game is performance-per-watt now, not just total power output. There will always be a data center that needs the most raw power, but the market for tinier centers are too huge in comparison to ignore.

kirilmatt

For the people saying ARM is increasing super fast which means they will catch Intel, this is flawed. Intel( and AMD to an extent) have hit a performance barrier. In the old days x86 used to advance at that pace. ARM will run into a wall just like x86 did. And they have a loooooong way to go to be close to high end performance. As I’ve been saying it’s not just about that anyways. Windows comparability is huge for x86. ARM cannot do this. Also x86 is scaling down way faster then ARM is scaling up. They are may closer to ARM efficiency and power consumption then ARM is to high end PC performance. Want proof? Look at clovertrail+ performance. The upcoming bay trail phone chips. Clovertrail+ is in the galaxy tab 3. How many high performance devices is ARM in? I’m not saying ARM is useless, but x86 is doing a better job adapting thanks partially to Intel’s massive R&D.

ronch

Of course. But right now Intel does have alternative solutions that can scale down and attack ARM’s turf (i.e. Atom). They may not yet be prevalent enough to impact ARM’s bottomline but given Intel’s engineering and process capability they can and already have begun to attack ARM’s market. It’s easier to scale down than to scale up, which is what ARM is faced with. To attack Intel’s market ARM will have to come up with really fast/efficient cores. We already have microservers using many ARM cores, but the market for such products is admittedly still very small. For one thing, as I’ve said, businesses are not very keen on embracing a new ISA by ditching their x86 investment. ARM will have to offer something very compelling. Power consumption may be ARM’s trump card these days but as I’ve said, businesses will be evaluating the tradeoffs, and right now Intel is the safest and most tried-and-true route. ARM will have to attack on all fronts in order to overcome Intel’s grip on the industry.

Saby

Atom is far, far away from competing with state of the art chips from ARM. How many smartphone/tablet wins does Intel have apart from the Lenovo K900 and Samsung Tab 10.1??

And yes, as to how competitive Intel Atom chips are, please have a look at:

Manipulation of the AnTuTu benchmark to make Intel Atom seem much better than it actually is… guess who could have done that??? Not the one which is supposed to ‘destroy’ the competition every year for the last 5 years and has somehow failed to get off the floor!

And why do people keep on saying that it is much easier for Intel to reduce power consumption than for ARM to improve processing power while staying in the same power envelope?? The facts say otherwise. Each year ARM processors have improved CPU power by 2.5x, each year for the last 3 years while remaining within the same power envelope. The current generation ARM chips are 30x as powerful as the original iPhone in 2007.

What has Intel done in the last 3 years with its Atom chips, manipulation of benchmarks aside?? How much improvement in power consumption numbers (that make sense for smartphone/tablet) for Intel chips has happened in the last 3-4 years. How many sockets has Atom won in this segment?

And why do people keep on talking about Intel R&D and Capex??? The ARM ecosystem spends multiple times more (just add up Samsung Logic + GloFo + TSMC + UMC + IBM Logic) for capex and parts of (Samsung + ARM + Apple + Qcom + … + ) + GloFo + TSMC for R&D. Intel is far, far behind on capex and R&D, a situation it is facing for the first time, I must add. The ARM ecosystem is not as hamstrung as AMD was…

ronch

Look, I’m all for ARM carving a slice of the pie and breaking Intel’s grip on the industry, but it goes without saying that ARM is faced with a very formidable competitor. Intel has far more experience building the latest and greatest CPU cores than ARM ever has with some of the most experienced and skilled engineers in the world (I’m referring to Intel’s people). Intel’s process advantage alone is enough to offset any power efficiency advantage inherent in the ARM ISA.

Intel has been concentrating its efforts in the ‘big core’ x86 CPU market and they obviously haven’t been tending to their mobile efforts anywhere as seriously. Now they have just announced plans to implement a ‘tick-tock’ cadence in their ‘small core’ product lines. You can be sure ARM folks felt a little tiddly right after the announcement. Giant now awake.

ARM perhaps does have a growing installed base and continues to gain performance, but that’s all good only for what ARM is already in these days: smartphones and tablets. They found a niche where Intel wasn’t competing in and ‘just enough’ performance is… er.. enough. Breaking into the x86 PC market, however, will be far more difficult, perhaps near impossible given the long, long history, legacy, and sheer size of the installed base of x86 computers. ARM will need to convince people to buy an ARM-based PC with no x86 software compatibility. Who, I ask, would buy such things apart from enthusiasts who know what they’re getting themselves into? Would the average Joe across the street or the CEO of a big company that’s entirely dependent on x86 software buy them? I think not. Yes, even if ARM reaches performance, price, and power efficiency parity with Intel’s best x86 chips, which doesn’t even sound remotely possible in the short term. Remember PowerPC? Those chips outperformed Intel’s chips when they came out. A lot of folks saw PowerPC as a serious threat to x86’s and Intel’s dominance. The rest is history.

As for many companies focusing their efforts on the ARM ecosystem, remember, each of those companies is doing parallel work. They’re all doing the same thing. Of course they look formidable, but on its own, a plucky little company such as Calxeda or a huge company like Samsung that has more experience in consumer electronics and circuit boards rather than leading-edge, high-speed microelectronics design that just licenses ARM’s designs or builds their own ‘just enough performance’ CPUs isn’t going to overtake a company like Intel which has been doing nothing but design ultra-fast, leading edge silicon for most of its existence. Hence, Intel will continue to have the lead against any plucky little company, no matter how many of those plucky little companies out there are doing ARM.

I’d like to close this post by letting you know that I never really was an Intel fan. In fact, I am more of an AMD fan and in a sense, I like ARM to break Intel’s near-monopoly as well. So I say all these things without being biased towards Intel or against ARM. Just calling it as I see it.

Aurel

You didin’t understand. AMD competes with NV on the GPU market. The hole AMD is now as big as Nvidia so their GPU division is much smaller than Nvidia’s and that means that it’s extremely difficult for them to compete.

kirilmatt

Its hard for them to compete? Their GPUs are generally on par with nvidias and volcanic islands should challenge nvidias highest end GPUs just like the 7970 competed with the 680. The 9970 should compete with the 780. People have always said that AMD is top small to compete yet they’ve remained competitive with Intel and nvidia for years.

Aurel

Yes it had for them to compete with Nvidia. This thing is quite obvious.
AMD is too small compared with it’s competitors. That is the truth.
They were not able to release Piledriver in 2011 and released the disaster called Bulldozer, Steamroller should be out by now to compete with Haswell, AMD HD 9000 series should also be out by now, Kaveri etc. This thing proves their inability to compete the way they should the way the costumers need them to.
Timing is very important in the IT industry.

kirilmatt

Their execution has been good of late. If you want late look at bay trail. Temash destroys clovertrail. AMD beat Intel there. Kaveri is only few months after haswell. Same with volcanic islands.

Jml

Wrong AMD IS DEAD!!!! Their Products SUCK they aren’t in Intel based notebooks Nvidia took all of them and the AMD notebooks are few and far in between AND THEY ALL SUCK!!!!! GOODBYE AMD!!!!!

Aurel

That is only a market segment. Let’s look at the hole mobile market including notebooks, netbooks etc. where intel has what more than 90% of the market. They need to release their tech faster in order to compete properly but they can’t do that because they lack the resources.
“A couple of months” is a lot in the IT industry a lot of missed opportunities and lost money (and I get this from AMD’s annual report when they emphasized the fact that timing is crucial in IT if you want to win money, market share basically be a success)

Joel Hruska

Kiril,

AMD does ~$300M in GPU sales per quarter, for a total of around $1.2B per year. NV historically does about $800M in GPU sales per *quarter, for a yearly total of $3.2 – $3.5B depending on the year.

kirilmatt

Then how does AMD have about 40% market share? Also APUs are not included in graphics revenues

ronch

People may be buying more tablets these days but Intel is still selling a lot of those Haswell chips as we speak. That’s a lot of missed opportunity for AMD as their current FX lineup slips further behind not just in terms of performance but sales as well. On the positive side, I hope AMD can really wring surprisingly more performance out of their Steamroller cores. There are also rumors that Steamroller is actually quite a new design where the entire core may look similar to Piledriver but the building blocks are practically new. I don’t think this is entirely true, but I do hope AMD can close the gap. And they need to, not just to catch up, but also to avoid disappointing people who are waiting for Steamroller.

Joel Hruska

Steamroller is not a new design. Steamroller is a moderately tweaked Piledriver that reverses some of the changes AMD made with that core. It de-couples some of what was once coupled, adds some branch prediction improvements, and of course, integrates the GCN core and HSA.

I’m hoping that Steamroller is strong enough to hit Thuban / Phenom II’s IPC. Excavator, the core after Steamroller, has more significant changes planned, including what appears to be 256-bit AVX registers.

kirilmatt

Incorrect. Steamroller with feature significant cache improvements as well as a whole FPU addition to each module. Couple that with minor tweaks and they are expecting 30-40% increase in IPC alone!

ronch

I never said that Steamroller is a new design. I said there are rumors that its building blocks are new. The basic underlying architecture and pipeline stages will probably be the same.

As for core/module improvements, you mention ‘de-couples some of what was once coupled’, which is kinda vague. Many parts of the module ARE decoupled. For example, the branch prediction logic is decoupled from the prefetchers, which allows the BPU to ‘run ahead’ without locking up if a mispredict happens. The integer ‘cores’ and FPU are also decoupled from the fetch/decode portion of the module. AFAIK AMD will redesign the module itself, most notably by equipping each integer ‘core’ with its own set of decoders (which is presumably still 4 decoders per set), redesign some of the building blocks (most notably the FPU which looks like it’s twice as wide… not sure about the branch prediction units but AMD is/was probably tweaking it), and increase the sizes of its data structures (buffers/queues, TLBs, cache structures, perhaps add a micro-op cache similar to Sandy Bridge, etc.). As for GCN and HSA, while AMD has hinted that it will replace the x86 FPU with a more GPU-like design somewhere down the road, I don’t think we’ll see it with Steamroller. Judging by the (purported) Steamroller die shots the FPU doesn’t look like it’s a GPU.

As for AVX capability, current FX processors do feature 256-bit AVX registers. The difference from Intel is that today’s Piledriver FX chips can do only one 256-bit AVX operation at one time while Intel can do two 256-bit (one ADD, one MUL) AVX ops concurrently. With both chips though, 256-bit registers are present. Intel probably has more AVX MSRs than AMD though, considering they could do more ops per cycle. AMD makes up for this with FMA (either 3 or 4), which allows a 256-bit ADD operation to execute concurrently with a 256-bit MUL operation. On the downside, FMA is a lot newer so fewer apps are probably using it.

GatzLoc

I just comment on here so I can hear JML scream.

raddude9

He’s going orgasmic this time!

Cécile Stevens

they have got some hindoo guy at the naming level?

GatzLoc

Nvidia’s CEO is a ‘hindoo’ as well. Those ‘hindoos’ crush you guys, and had you running for the hills. It was the jew who won you India with treachery in the Sikh, and Mysore Empire.

That’s why it’s funny how much ‘white nationalists’ hate jews, as they gave you your rule.

It’s Hindu btw, which isn’t a religion anyway just a term to bring together 1000’s of traditions, it would be like saying pagan europe had 1 religion, or tribal Africa.

Joel Hruska

Gatz, are you high? I’m not aware of Jen-Hsun Huang’s religious practices, nor sure why they’d be pertinent. As for Hinduism, while the term covers many disparate traditions and practices, it is considered to be the proper term *for* that collection of faiths.

And why are we discussing Judaism?

GatzLoc

It was some high ranking dude at Nvidia, I don’t remember now. Point is, lot of south Indians in IT.

And No, the proper term coined by the British since everything is political I suggest we not use it; a similar tactic of a one identity for multiple tribes was used in Malay, and New Guinea. That one term basically sets up the geo-political situation for what will likely be the first of probably many upcoming nuclear wars.

—

How much similarity is there between an ascetic and a follower of some deity who demands human sacrifice?

And judaism comes in, in any dicussion of the past few centuries colonialism will come in, and therefore judaism.

Why, are you jewish?

How would a Sikh do drugs??

Dozerman

What recent amd product hasn’t been delayed?

kirilmatt

Kabini and Temash to name two of them. Kaveri doesn’t look to be delayed, this rumor is stupid as they have been producing the chips for months and would have know about production problems awhile ago. They have always maintained it will be on time.

Jml

AHAHAHAH…SUCK IT AMD!!!!!

raddude9

Yea, this is just a rumor, calm down.

Jml

But this rumor like every bad AMD rumor has always proven true SO SUCK IT AMD AND DIE!!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

Phobos

true how so?

Jml

Remember Bulldozer and Piledriver and how AMD hyped them up like no tomorrow only for them to SUCK LIKE CRAZY!!!!

raddude9

What are you dribbling about?

PileDriver gives gives great performance per $ according to any review I’ve seen:

This is vital for people concerned with value and not power consumption.

Jml

Not that page again ITS USELESS!!!! Performance per $ is Pointless because Piledriver uses three times the power of Intel CPU’s when overclocked.

raddude9

Hey stupid, that’s a totally different page reviewing the FX-8350, not the one reviewing Richland. Your total lack of reading comprehension shows that you are completely immune to information that disrupts your preconceived notions. How sad to be you.

Jml

Doesn’t matter because you are trying to make AMD look good where it fails BADLY!!!!! NO IT SUCKS TO YOU AMD LOVER!!!!! I know but was I talking about SHITDRIVER!!!! But Richland is a mere re-brand and Trinity sucks so Richland SUCKS!!!!!

raddude9

So you admit you got the page wrong, just because two separate reviews laud AMD for having great value chips you got totally confused. Awww, poor you, now AMD have multiple chip lines that give better value than intel, you must hate that.

Jml

AHAHAHAHAH……That is irrelevant because AMD has terrible chips but I have high standards. AMD has multiple chips lines that ARE NOTHING LESS THAN PURE 100% GRADE SS CRAP!!!!!!

raddude9

I know inconvenient facts are irrelevant to you, but I’ll try to get through to your brain again:

AMD Chips have great IGP performance and/or great CPU performance for the money.

Jml

Nope I am still right and you are still wrong. And that chart is irreverent. And no AMD does NOT have great performance per $ Intel’s Core i3 does.

raddude9

If you think the core i3 has the best performance per $ then you’re reading the chart wrong.

How is that chart irrelevant exactly, it plots various types of performance by cost, that seems pretty relevant to me.

Jml

The Core-i3 Wins according that chart in performance per $ expect in IGP.

raddude9

Oh dear, you can’t even read that simple chart properly.

Did you notice this bit in the description of the chart “As always, the better values will be closer to the top left corner of each plot.”

The core i3-3225 is a long way from the top left corner.

It’s no wonder you have a poor opinion of AMD if you can’t read simple graphs properly.

Jml

No You’re wrong the Core i3 is serious contender on that stupid chart and it uses FAR LESS power than ANY of those crappy AMD CHIPS!!!!!!

raddude9

The chart doesn’t lie, the i3 does poorly against the AMD chips.

Jml

Wrong it does lie and the i3 does very well against AMD chips and uses A LOT less power to boot.

raddude9

How does that chart “lie” exactly, is Techreport making things up?

Jml

Because the i3’s IGP is decent and it uses HALF the power of every AMD chip there. And it crushes AMD chips in IPC.

raddude9

Sure, the i3’s IGP is decent, but it’s not great, you’re not going to be playing games on it.

IPC is not as important as it used to be. Multi-core is the thing now.

So what if it uses less power, that’s not important on the desktop.

Jml

Wrong AMD needs to catch up to Intel in performance per watt and IPC ASAP!!!!! Wrong it is VERY important on the desktop. Face it FANBOI AMD LOSES INTEL WINS!!!!!

raddude9

Nope, IPC doesn’t matter much any more, having more cores is a better path to more performance.

How is performance per watt important on the desktop, please explain?
If performance per watt was really important Haswell would be the only chip people would buy… but it’s not, ARM sells bucket loads more chips than intel. Face it, absolute price is much more important than performance per watt.

Jml

Wrong IPC matters a lot more than you think AMD fanboi!!!! High IPC which AMD does NOT have will also increase multi-core performance. To people like me it is and there are plenty of people unlike you who care how much their PC uses. In idiots like you sure you might be right but Intel is winning the desktop wars because they are well known and AMD sucks so no ONE other than you and a handful OF IDIOTIC AMD fanboi’s would recommend AMD. Wrong IPC and performance per watt IS EVERYTHING!!!! Price is a last concern.

raddude9

IPC was important back in the day, but now the vast majority of programs that need a lot of computing power have been optimized for multi-cores. High-IPC is dying, and even intel have worked this out, their new Atom chips are going to be quad-cores.
You might also think that price is the last concern, but you are also on your own thinking that, the world is in recession and everybody, particularly companies are trying to save money.

For somebody who pretends to know stuff about technology you really do hold some antiquated views.

Jml

Sorry I know a lot about technology and I go for performance per watt above ALL ELSE. Performance per $ is stupid because you have to run that PC and I keep my PC on 24/7 SO AMD sucks for me and Intel rocks for my usage. Why thank you.

But when I need to game they use far more power and that does matter to me. But maybe Kaveri or the PS4 might offer me something I would want to buy.

raddude9

I don’t believe you, if you really are serious about games you wouldn’t even consider intel integrated graphics.

Jml

Intel Graphics have made huge strides in the past few years and they have better Linux driver than AMD does.

raddude9

Intel graphics are still behind.

AMD have better windows drivers than intel.

Jml

But not for Linux in which AMD is still far behind.

raddude9

AMD’s drivers are still well ahead of their main competition in Linux, Nvidia.

Jml

No you are Wrong Nvidia BY FAR has THE BEST drivers out there for GPU’s no one can compete with Nvidia on Drivers.

raddude9

Nonsense, Nvidia’s open source drivers are complete junk.

Jml

I was thinking about their binary drivers which rock. Nvidia’s closed source drivers are far better than AMD’s. Why should I care about open source drivers?

raddude9

There are plenty of reasons to care about open source drivers. For example, with closed-source drivers, Nvidia can stop supporting your card any time they like, with open-source they can’t, and your card will likely be supported for much longer.

Jml

That’s is true but that doesn’t matter to me because I buy a new PC every one to two years so that isn’t a problem for me. Unlike you who keeps his power guzzling PC around for as long as possible.

raddude9

I don’t “keep my PC around”… I keep it up-to-date, whenever a component breaks or becomes obsolete I replace it with a new component. Many desktops though are “kept-around” and after 3 to 5 years of neglect they are usually only only fit for the garbage.

If you replace your PC every year or two then I can bet that I’ve spent an order of magnitude less money on my PC over time.

Jml

On an outdated AMD board no less. No you spend an order of magnitude more an I do MR.POWER HOGGING GAMER!!!!

raddude9

Nope, my AMD board is only about a year old, it’s not out-dated at all!

I don’t particularly care about power consumption on my desktop, I care about cost. And my overall costs are low.

That’s funny, like anybody would really notice a couple of cents a day difference.

Face facts, power usage is never going to add up to a fraction of the cost of a new machine.

Jml

That maybe be true but Intel has more performance per watt even in the desktop AMD stands NO CHANCE!!!!! Also I like small systems and Intel is usually better at those than AMD is.

raddude9

Having better performance per watt on a desktop is nice, but it’s not worth paying a lot more money for.

Jml

I am in the mobile market not the desktop market so performance per watt and small system is what I want.

raddude9

I thought you wanted a new desktop machine? Why pay the mobile chip premium if you want a new desktop?

Jml

So that I can get a very small machine.

raddude9

But it sounds like you can’t really afford that approach

Jml

Wrong. Yes I can afford that approach.

raddude9

But you know other approaches would be a lot cheaper?

Jml

That maybe be true but I want the best I can afford and AMD doesn’t have that right now.

raddude9

I think you have already made it clear that you don’t think that AMD chips don’t suit your particular needs.

Jml

Its not just that its the fact AMD chips suck flat out.

raddude9

Not true, most AMD chips have their place, even if people like you refuse to acknowledge it.

Jml

No AMD chips have no place in the Holy Intel/Nvidia PC landscape!!!!

raddude9

Intel/Nvidia is “Holy” now? Is that the reason for your anti-AMD crusade?

Jml

No its just that Intel/Nvidia is the combo of awesomeness in PC gaming and its unbeatable. AMD will never trounce it.

raddude9

Why should they, it’s too expensive. AMD are much better at val-for-money solutions like Richland and the PS4 chip.

Jml

Value solutions like RICHLAND SUCK ASS!!!!! They use just as much power as Intel’s NUC and their CPU’s suck ass in the IPC department. For what I do I need the highest IPC dual core I can find for dolphin so AMD need NOT APPLY!!!!!!! The PS4 is decent for sure but it doesn’t hold a candle to any of Intel’s Haswell or even broadwell for that matter.

raddude9

So you’re saying that for anybody not using emulators to play games AMD is a better option?

The NUC uses a lot more power under load than similar AMD systems… look it up.

Jml

No I said that Intel is your ONLY option if you use emulators and AMD is an inferior choice for games as well. No it doesn’t it actually uses about the same and its a lot better for dosbox. I can’t wait for the Intel haswell NUC its going to trounce AMD into oblivion!!!!!!

raddude9

Actually from what I’ve seen the AMD based Sapphire Edge VS8 uses a lot less power under load than the intel NUC:

“Look at that review and then tell me if AMD has any worth left.”
How can I form an opinion of an entire company based on one review of one of it’s minor product lines. Is that what you do?

Jml

Minor Piledriver is what Richland is based of so if Piledriver is a piece of DOG SHIT then Richland is no better!!!!

Jml

Value solutions like RICHLAND SUCK ASS!!!!! They use just as much power as Intel’s NUC and their CPU’s suck ass in the IPC department. For what I do I need the highest IPC dual core I can find for dolphin so AMD need NOT APPLY!!!!!!! The PS4 is decent for sure but it doesn’t hold a candle to any of Intel’s Haswell or even broadwell for that matter.

Jml

AMD sucks down power like candy and Kaveri will be no different.

raddude9

AMD’s Kabini/Temash are very power efficient and reasonably powerful.
Also, mobile Richland is quite power efficient… look it up.

Jml

AMD Temash do use less power than Brazos However their performance leaves A LOT TO BE DESIRED!!!!!! Wrong Mobile Richland SUCKS DOWN POWER LIKE NO TOMORROW even Ivy bridge is better in power usage.

Phobos

Yeah but their graphics sucks and are overpriced.

Jml

That is also true but AMD uses up power like no tomorrow and that IS UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!

raddude9

Huh?! Temash is very power efficient, it’s much more powerful than it’s Atom competitors and 6x cheaper than Haswell.

Jml

So what its not even going to be half the price of haswell so your cost measurement is false. When buying a tablet you consider the end price and the performance and thus Intel always WINS!!!!! When AMD gets something right you can always be sure that the fucked up big time somewhere else.

raddude9

My cost measurement of the CPU is completely accurate. The most popular tablets are under $300, that completely rules out Haswell.

Jml

It also rules out AMD you moron. Only ARM and MIPS can make tablets that are below $300 so far.

raddude9

You may call me a moron, but you’re the one who can’t add up. Temash costs about $50 that will get it into $300 tablets easily. Haswell tablets on the other hand will be well above the $600 mark for a very long time.

Jml

No Temash won’t make it into $300 tablets Sorry. AMD Temash tablets will cost well above $400. I know Haswell tablets will cost well over $600. But AMD tablets won’t be cheap either.

raddude9

And you’re basing this projection on what exactly?

Jml

x86 are never going to cheap even if they are from AMD face it. OEM will not sell those things for less than $400.

raddude9

According to the new intel CEO they will have $200 tablets using Atom chips:

There the intel NUC with it’s 17W CPU can use 41.1W and the Sapphire Edge VS8 with it’s 19W AMD cpu only gets up to 33.4W.

Explain that.

Jml

Intel haswell has performance per watt and AMD needs to match that ASAP or they are dead. I can’t explain other than Ivy bridge sucks.

raddude9

So you acknowledge that AMD chips can lead to power efficient systems then, finally.
They can’t match Haswell’s performance per watt, so it’s not worth them trying, they need to concentrate on other aspects of their chips.

Jml

Can but usually don’t. But AMD sucks right now and I don’t see that changing with Kaveri.

raddude9

“Can” is good enough for me, just check reviews for the good systems.
AMD sucks? no it doesn’t. AMD systems are great value and have good performance.

Nope, AMD’s Mobile Piledrive chips are quite efficient, the desktop version use a lot more power though.
“FATAL K.O.” um, they’re not wrestling, what are you 12!
Nope, AMD chips are fine, decent performance and good value, there’s nothing more the average computer user needs.

Jml

Nope, Their performance per watt and IPC SUCK ASS!!!!!! Wrong again AMD chips SUCK and use too much power.

raddude9

High IPC is only important if you want to emulate some playstation thing so for grown-ups it’s not important at all.
AMD’s desktop chips use a bit more power, but their mobile chips are just as low-power as intel’s.

Jml

That’s right and that’s what I am trying to do. Ahahahah…Just an excuse not to praise Intel products and LOVE AMD even more than you already DO stupid fanboi!!!!!! AMD’s desktop chips use 2 to 3 times more power. In Mobile they are competitive and have a faster IGP!!!!

raddude9

I don’t love AMD, I just appreciate their products.
Desktop power consumption is not important when you are talking about a paltry 50watts of so, I don’t mind the extra wattage as the chips have a much better GPU as you say.

Jml

50 watts IS A LOT OF POWER YOU MORON!!!!!! And the difference is big enough for the extra power. Performance per watt is key. Everyone should embrace performance per watt and send AMD TO THEIR GRAVES!!!!

raddude9

Please explain how 50Watts is a “lot of power”? It’s so small in fact, that an hours worth of 50 Watts cost much less than one cent.

“Performance per watt” is nice, but it completely ignores monetary value, which is probably why intel likes it so much, but any metric that ignores money is worthless.

I propose you use “Performance per Watt per $”, you know it makes sense.

Jml

For the extra IGP performance 50 watts IS WAY TOO MUCH power to justify the extra power used. No its NOT worthless its what Intel should be doing and AMD should follow suit. Why should I use Performance per watt per $?

raddude9

Nope, that extra IGP performance is the difference between playing games at 1080p and Not playing games at 1080p. That makes a big difference.
You should use “Performance per watt per $” because “Performance per watt” is an intel marketing tool designed to get suckers to part with large amounts of cash.

Jml

Performance per watt is NOT a gimmick and I am not brainwashed by Intel. Your metric makes AMD look better than it actually is.

raddude9

But you said price “is” a factor, thus I am factoring it into the metric.
Sure AMD looks better with the new metric, that’s because you are taking more than 2 factors into account.

Jml

I still will use performance per watt NOT per $. AMD is looking REALLY bad right now. They can’t even get a proper chip out. Kaveri is delayed until next year when Intel will have 14nm on mobile vs AMD at 28nm FIGHT INTEL WINS FATAL K.O!!!!!!!

raddude9

“Performance per watt” is a useful metric, but “Performance per watt per $” is more applicable to the real world. AMd have plenty of good chips, which is why their finances are turning around.

“Fatal K.O.” are you a 12 year old wrestling fan?

Jml

And that is why I use it. Really how is that? Ahahahahahah…They are still in the red and the WORST IS YET TO COME!!!!!! No but its fun to say and when I was 12 I was a big wresting fan.

raddude9

So what are you going to do next quarter when AMD’s results have improved again?
I’m not surprised you were/are a wrestling fan.

Jml

Really why is that? I am going to say finally some good news for AMD but its not enough.

raddude9

so even if they make a profit next time, you’ll still be there with your “AMD is Finished” message?

Intel need to compete with ARM on low price, that’s where ARM has the upper hand.

Jml

That is true but Intel’s Fat profit margins are going have to go if they even want to compete.

raddude9

They’ll segment the market, low prices for the ARM competitors and high prices elsewhere.

Jml

Intel might do that now that they have a new CEO.

raddude9

They’ll segment the market, low prices for the ARM competitors and high prices elsewhere.

Jml

AMD is DEAD!!!!! R.I.P. 1969-2014 MWHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

raddude9

If AMD did die in the future, intel would be free to charge whatever they like.

Jml

But AMD’s death is unavoidable. AMD screwed far too many times. If they won the apple contract they would not be history in the near future.

Phobos

Unavoidable? are you high or something. They won’t go out until they say so.

Jml

Yeah that is true and thus AMD IS FINISHED!!!! Nothing but bad news from AMD none of it good it doesn’t bode well for AMD. Now DIE AMD DIE AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

raddude9

But MIPS died and they are still staging a comeback!
AMD made a few mistakes, sure, but what company hasn’t?
The number of mistakes made does not correlate with a companies longevity.

Jml

And unlike AMd they will succeed with IMG backing them AMD doesn’t have anyone like IMG backing them up so they are Finished.

raddude9

So, you like MIPS because they totally failed and now need a sugar-daddy to bring them back to life. I though you hated a lack of competition?

Jml

I do but AMD is bad competition and ARM sucks down like just like AMD does.

raddude9

So why don’t you hate MIPS, they were really terrible competition, and at the moment they still are.

AMD chips may not be the fastest, but they have great GPUs and are better value than intel.

Jml

Because they weren’t there most of the time and they don’t make sucky products like AMD does. Not they are not a better value they cost as much as current Intel CPU’s and AMD will raise the price for Kaveri into the stratosphere.

raddude9

MIPS have been around for years making all kinds of promises, but with very little to show in the way of decent products.

The AMD chips have higher performance than similarly priced intel chips, that’s just the way it is.

If you think Kaveris price will be in the stratosphere, then you must think Haswells price is in orbit!

Jml

Actually yes Haswell’s price is in orbit. But this time I think MIPS can do it. Wrong its not the way it is you need a reality check. The reality is that Intel is winning the x86 war and AMD is losing IT BADLY!!!!!

raddude9

If you think I need a reality check then please give me a link. I’ve given you plenty of links that say AMD is better value, if you have contrary data, please don’t keep it to yourself, share!

Jml

Also AMD being in consoles will not help PC sales out one bit nor will make their shitty products any better.

raddude9

Why would you expect consoles to help PC sales. If anything having much more powerful consoles will take away from PC sales.
AMDs products are actually pretty good, hence they are in all the new generation consoles.

Jml

No Sony and M$ were and still are desperate and AMD was the lowest bidder that is ALL!!!!! Wrong AMD products while they are mediocre at best they always mess up BIG time somewhere. For jaguar its performance and for Kaveri it will be power consumption.

raddude9

Get real, no other company could make the hardware for these new consoles.

Intel don’t have a good enough GPU and Nvidia don’t have a good enough CPU. AMD had the most suitable technology.
How can you say that Jaguar has poor performance, it’s much faster than Atom. And how do you know how much power Kaveri will use?

Jml

It would of been better to use a souped up tegra for the PS4. Intel’s CPU is great for low power usage and its fast. Because I know Kaveri will be ZERo improvement in power usage.

Intel’s fast/low-power chip is great, but it’s crazy expensive and most people don’t need that speed. It’s a purely a vanity purchase for most people.

I glad to see you’ve kept your usual open mind about Kaveri…. No preconceived notions there at all!

Jml

Thanks but I already know Kaveri’s GOING TO SUCK!!!!!! Tegra for the PS4 isn’t a bad but you know what would be a better Idea. MIPS/Rogue or even ARM A-15/Rogue.

raddude9

Glad to see that you’re being open-minded about Kaveri, as expected. You may call me a fanboi, but at least I’m open minded about MIPS chips, they have great potential… if they ever make it into a product.

Jml

Oh I do agree with you on MIPS chips but I really don’t think Kaveri is going to be any good not compared to Intel’s almighty haswell. Intel haswell will use less power than AMD’s Kaveri for sure.

raddude9

I don’t hold out much hope for MIPS, they have disappointed far more than AMD have. Maybe IMG can turn them around though.

Sure, Haswell will use less power than Kaveri, it’s built using a better process, AMD just needs Kaveri to have a more competitive CPU, and boost their GPU advantage.

Jml

Yeah that is true for MIPS. Also AMD needs a lot more than a CPU and GPU boost. AMD needs to severely cut down Kaveri power consumption to be competitive with Intel haswell in performance per watt.

Kaveri needs to beat Intel in power consumption and in performance per watt. Kaveri is pretty much AMD’s last hope and if AMD screws this one which they most likely will they ARE DONE FOR!!!!!

raddude9

Nope Kaveri just needs better performance and to be priced lower than Haswell, that’s all they need.

Jml

That would help but that’s not going to be enough this time around. Kaveri needs to have better battery life as well.

raddude9

The strategy of going for low-power above all else does not seem to be working for intel, I think AMD should do something different.

Jml

Its having mixed results for Intel. What AMD needs is performance per watt in its APU’s. Especially at the mobile level. More performance doesn’t seem to serving AMD all that well because its power usage SUCKS ASS!!!!

raddude9

AMD can’t take the performance per watt crown because of how far Global Foundries are behind intel in process technology.
Thus, AMD should try to focus on their differences from intel, not try to chase them down.
Besides, chasing low-power envelopes does not seem to be serving intel very well, so why should AMD try to follow that.

Jml

That’s not my concern as a consumer. Besides Intel is not as far ahead as you think they are. Like what differences? I don’t see many other lack of IPC, HORRIBLE performance per watt, Terrible battery life, and an Inferior GPU.

raddude9

intel are about 2 years ahead of AMD in process technology.

AMD has an inferior GPU?? now you’re having a laugh, intel need to build expensive cache onto their chips to get AMD-like performance, that’s no good for the average consumer.
AMD need to extend their GPU lead, and improve their IPC. Improving the IPC will boost their performance per watt. If they can do that and keep their lead in “number of cores per $” they should be fine.

Jml

2 Years ahead huh? TSMC and GloFO are accelerating due to Intel’s lead so Intel can’t rest for too long. You forgot about power consumption. AMD chips uses twice as much power for a same price CPU. Yes increasing GPU and CPU power both increase performance per watt in my book. More cores is NOT always better.

raddude9

“AMD chips uses twice as much power for a same price CPU”… on the desktop. Their mobile line is as efficient as intels mobile chips.

“More cores is NOT always better.” is true, but more cores is usually better these days.

Jml

They sure do use twice the power I am NOT kidding and sometimes more if you overclock AMD’s CPU to match Intel’s stock performance. It was but not with Haswell. Intel Haswell blows AMD to ribbons in performance per watt and battery life not to mention their IPC advantage.

raddude9

You clearly are kidding, if you had proof of this “twice the power” thing, you’d post it.

Haswell is a good chip, no doubt, but the mobile chips cost too much, AMD’s temash is much more wallet friendly and it also runs at much lower power levels than Haswell.

Jml

Wrong again it really does use twice the power for the same $ and the same performance. Compare Core i3 to the A10-6800K then you will know how bad AMD’s power problem really is. Wrong again Intel haswell uses less power than most Kabini APU’s.

raddude9

The mobile chips don’t use twice the power, they use simil amounts of power, but if you want to talk about desktop chips:

The A10-6700 is much more power efficient than the core-i3 at idle, and that’s what a lot of chips spend the majority of their time at. Sure it can use almost twice the power at full load, but these are desktop chips, it doesn’t really mater.

I still haven’t seen any definitive tests of Kabini versus Haswell, so I don’t know if your assertion is true.

Jml

Uh Wrong link IDIOT!!!!! Wrong it uses more power in idle and that doesn’t matter to me full load power matters to me and Intel wins in that. The A10-6700 GETS SLAUGHTERED in load power by Intel.

raddude9

No need for the insults, my apologies, the link I meant to include was this one:

Where you can clearly see that the desktop AMD chips are much better at idle, hence they are much better suited to certain things like 24/7 operation.
Sure, the A10-6700 might use 46W more at load, but that’s not important because these are desktop chips and the electricity only costs a few $s a year.

Jml

Oh that link again. AMD uses less in idle yeah so what that doesn’t matter to me when it uses twice as much as the core i3 under load. Damn you’re an idiot and yes it is important because I game a lot so full load power is more important than idle.

raddude9

It’s not twice as much more power, it’s only 80% more (for the A10-6700).
Why is that important in a desktop chip, even if you did game for 8 hours a day it would still cost you only a few dollars a year extra. And for those few extra dollars you get much better frame rates, particularly at high resolutions.

Jml

AHAHAH…It’s almost twice as much power and in that case I am better off with an Intel CPU and A Nvidia GPU. That combo takes about the same amount of power but it is a lot faster than what AMD has for the same power used.

raddude9

Sure, you can get an external GPU, but I thought you were interested in small systems, having a bulky graphics card is going to kill that dream. And apart from driving up idle and load power consumption it’s also going to increase your price massively.

Also, if you were going down the graphics card route, AMD have some great chips that don’t include IGPs which would be better suited to having graphics cards added.

Jml

I am and it will but the difference in power usage in desktop chips makes Intel a no brainier. In mobile chips AMD might have a winner in Kaveri If it can lower power usage and increase performance at the same time. Not for Linux AMD wouldn’t. Nvidia makes the best GPU drivers in the industry.

raddude9

How is power consumption in “Desktop” chips particularly important?
You don’t know much about Linux if you think Nvidia make the best drivers.

Jml

Oh and why do you think I don’t know much about Linux if I think Nvidia has the best Drivers?

raddude9

Because the open source Nvidia drivers are rubbish and Nvidia has been the worst company for Linux to deal with.

Jml

I was talking about their binary drivers YOU MORON!!!!! I don’t give a damn about open source drivers because I can get binary ones that work so much better on Linux well expect from AMD their Linux drivers SUCK ASS!!!!!

raddude9

You can talk about binary divers if you like, I was talking about open source drivers and AMD’s open-source drivers are far superior to Nvidias.

Jml

Yeah AMD’s open source drivers are superior to Nvidia’s but Intel’s open source drivers CRUSH BOTH OF THEM TO PIECES!!!!! Of with Binary Drivers are much faster and thus Nvidia is much faster than AMD on Linux.

raddude9

The intel open-source drivers are good, but you’re still better off with a discreet AMD card and their open-source drivers.

Jml

Nope you are not. If you get an AMD discreet card and are only using open source drivers you are just wasting your time.

Not only are they improving their open source drivers, they are patching the Linux Kernel to support the new features. Something Nvidia never do with their closed source blobs.

Jml

I didn’t know you cared about open source so much? As me it doesn’t matter if its binary or open-source as long as it works. So that means that binary drivers that perform much better are a safe bet for me. I was talking about AMD’s SUCKY BINARY DRIVERS!!!!

raddude9

I’m a fan of linux and open source in general, I mostly use Windows to play games because there’s not many games on Linux… at the moment at least.

Open-source is important, and Nvidia has never joined the spirit of Linux, they only release binaries and they contribute nothing to the kernel.

Jml

But Nvidia Binaries are very good and they even support BSD which AMD can’t say the same. I am a fan of Linux as well.

raddude9

Having only binaries for something as important as the graphics drivers is a big problem in Linux. To start with there’s no chance of getting binaries for a different CPU type, like PowerPC, ARM… or MIPS!

Jml

Sad but true.

Jml

Sad but true.

Jml

That’s not my concern as a consumer. Besides Intel is not as far ahead as you think they are. Like what differences? I don’t see many other lack of IPC, HORRIBLE performance per watt, Terrible battery life, and an Inferior GPU.

Jml

AMD’s execution has been terrible as of late and thus AMD’s FATE IS SEALED!!!! GOODBYE AMD DIE WITH M$ and Metro!!!!!

raddude9

AMD’s execution has been much better since Rory Read took over.

If you think microsoft is going to die then you’re going to be disappointed about that as well.

Jml

Nope that is going to happen for sure. AMD has delay after delay thanks to Rory Read so no they ARE NOT getting better they are getting worse.

raddude9

Nope, RR just made a set of realistic timescales when he got in, previously they were just going to miss their targets.

Jml

And now they are missing their target just as much AMD fanboi!!!!!

raddude9

Let me introduce you to a new word “Rumor”. Look it up.

Jml

Yeah I know but you know the funny thing about bad AMD rumors they are always true.

That’s a good AMD rumor NOT A BAD ONE AND ITS NOT TRUE ANYWAYS. And No I DO NOT believe that one.

raddude9

I had a feeling you wouldn’t believe that one. So who decides which rumors are bad and which are good?

Jml

Of course not because everything AMD says is over-hyped to all hell.

raddude9

Press releases are things AMD say. Rumors are things people say about AMD. Which are you talking about?

Jml

And they are exaggerated like all hell. But I was talking about AMD rumors said by people.

raddude9

I don’t pay much attention to rumors, they are the gossip of the techie world. I prefer cold hard facts.

Jml

Really? I hate to admit this but Intel looking pretty bad at this point and it sucks because AMD doesn’t have any products I would want.

raddude9

Yep, facts are what matters, not rumors.
Intel’s strategy at the moment is strange, having all their product lines focused on extremely low power envelopes seems a bit single-minded, I think they need to diversify their product lines more.

Jml

NO Intel doesn’t because the desktop is DEAD and AMD didn’t get the memo. Intel is trying to compete with ARM NOT AMD!!!! AMD has already been defeated by Intel.

raddude9

I know intel is competing with ARM, maybe that’s their problem, just intel thinks that the desktop is dead, that’s why they’re doing poorly. Time for AMD to swoop in and grab more of the desktop market which still has a few years left at least.

Jml

Intel got the memo AMD didn’t. It’s going to pay off big time for Intel just not now. The Desktop IS DEAD face it.

raddude9

AMD got the memo. They’re making a nice low-power Jaguar line of chips now, that line got them the new consoles as well.
Intel’s low-power focus is only rewarding them with lower sales, and that’s not going to change any time soon.
Desktops will be around for a long time, face it.

Jml

And those chips still use up too much power and have terrible performance per watt. Winning consoles means LESS THAN NOTHING!!!! Wrong the Desktop is dead and you are saying that because you are in denial. Intel is doing the right thing by lowering power usage.

raddude9

You think AMD is going to lose money on the new consoles? How did you come to that conclusion?

Actually the Desktop is re-surging, Laptop sales have been much harder hit by the rise in tablets than Desktops:

No denial required, if things carry on at this rate, laptops will die out long before desktops.

Jml

No they aren’t going to gain a whole bunch of money that’s all. Consoles have never turned a good profit and AMD was in two consoles the last gen that didn’t help it at all. Mobile is king and Intel is its unmatched ruler AMD IS GOING DOWN!!!!!!

raddude9

But you said it was “LESS THAN NOTHING!!!!” that implies that they are going to lose money…. Or were you just exaggerating again?
I agree that mobile is very important now, but unfortunately intel’s strategy of super-expensive mobile chips is not doing it any good, laptop sales which are their bread-and-butter are well down. AMD’s strategy of reasonably priced chips seem to be a better bet at the moment.

Jml

Intel wins in battery life AMD can’t even compete in battery life. AMD stand ZERO chance against Intel!!! Intel is expensive but they are the best so they can charge that much.

raddude9

intel wins what exactly? Would that be the “better battery life but is massively expensive” Award? Sure, they have that one in the bag.

If people thought AMD stood zero chance, then it’s stock price would be zero. It’s not. Only you think they have zero chance.

Jml

Yep AMD loses to Intel.

raddude9

loses what?

Jml

On everything important. IPC, performance per watt, and power consumption.

raddude9

You don’t think price is a factor?

What about IGP performance?

Power consumption? that depends on the specific chips you are comparing, AMD do have some very efficient chips.

Jml

It is a factor its just the last thing I factor in. I count that too. That maybe true but for some reason when AMD actually does something right they ALWAYS manage to fuck it up big time some other way.

raddude9

You don’t think it’s odd that you find the areas where the intel chips have the advantage are, for you, more important than the areas where the AMD chips have the advantage?

Jml

No because that is what Intel is good at. Yeah for sure it is more important than a better GPU. Intel has almost everything expect price and a good IGP.

raddude9

For me Price is the most important factor in determining what chip to buy.

Jml

Of course it is and that is just plain dumb. You think Price is the be all end all pathetic!!!!

raddude9

No, Price is not the be all and end all, but it is the most important factor. If something has too high a price I simply rule it out. Does everybody else not do that?

Jml

I don’t entirely do that but sometimes I do. Yeah you are like the average Joe that is expected of you. I want quality NOT CHEAPNESS!!!!!

raddude9

If you are buying a household appliance, a car, or a piece of furniture, i.e. something that should last for a decade or more, then the idea of going for quality over cost is usually a good one. This is where the average-joe mentality of always going for the cheapest product falls down.

But for a piece of electronics that is going to be out-dated in 2 years, is it really worth paying over-the-odds?

Jml

Yes it is worth paying a lot of money.

raddude9

for something that has a 2 year lifespan… please explain.

Jml

I like quality as well as good performance per watt and AMD DOESN’T HAVE THAT!!!!!!

raddude9

The AMD mobile chips have plenty of performance per watt, in particular chips like the 19W A8-5545M quad-core will have more than enough performance for most people but will also be very reasonably priced as well.

Jml

Wrong the 19W A8-5545M has decent performance per watt although I was thinking about getting it.

Jml

Yeah they do win that award. A good award to win as well means Intel is the best and AMD IS THE WORST!!!!!

raddude9

All it actually means is that suckers will buy intel chips and pay a lot more than they need to.

Jml

I am no sucker and I don;t buy until I know how much power the product I want will use.

raddude9

Hmm, you seem to believe everything intel’s marketing dept. says, I just look at the cold hard stats.

You’re getting a desktop machine yea? So why would you care if it saves you a few watts?

Jml

No I am getting a mobile machine to save power and have a smaller system.

raddude9

It’s not worth the money, you’re going to over-pay for your silicon and end up throwing the whole machine out in less than 2 years.

Jml

True but AMD hasn’t made a worthy product for me just yet.

raddude9

I don’t think anybody has a product that can satisfy your requirements.

Jml

What do you mean by that please elaborate?

raddude9

You want to play games and do heavy duty emulation in a tiny power envelope using a miniature PC. There’s no machine that will do that.

Jml

Yeah but that is what I expect every PC I own to do.

raddude9

Sure, the problem is that there is no system that will let you play a decent game at 20W though. It currently can’t be done.

Jml

Yeah that’s sad but true. Maybe MIPS with the warrior and Rogue could easily pull it off at less than 5 watts.

raddude9

If you just want to play Android games there’s already plenty of low-wattage ARM options.

Jml

But most of them use too much power. Most easily use 4 watts or more.

raddude9

that’s just stupid, at least try to come up with a reason.

raddude9

If you just want to play Android games there’s already plenty of low-wattage ARM options.

James Cracker

I have AMD processors and graphics cards in all of my 375 corporate PCs. They are the fastest and most efficient.

I really hope AMD can come up with something quick, Even the newest from them is still behind Intel’s Lynnfield CPU’s. I had a FX-8320 I upgraded from a i5 750, I only had the 8320 for a week before I got rid of it and got a i5 3470. The 750 was actually about even with the 8320 but with a bit more punch. It was actually a downgrade. I got lucky and got a deal on a new Z77 and i5 3470 and I have never looked back. AMD really needs to bring something before Intel starts running away with prices.

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.